In the August 3, 2009, issue of Sporting News magazine, we asked 118 top coaches and people in the know to rank the best coaches ever. Pat Summitt, who announced her retirement Wednesday after 38 seasons at Tennessee, 1,098 victories and eight national titles, was voted 11th on our list of the 50 greatest coaches.

In that issue, former player Michelle Snow recalled being recruited to Tennessee by Summitt.

By Michelle Snow

During recruitment, I called Coach Summitt in the middle of practice—I didn’t know they were practicing. I told her I wasn’t going to go to Tennessee. I could tell her patience had run out and she wasn’t having a good day.

She said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I was like, Yeah, right. She’s not going to come down to little ol’ Pensacola to convince me to come to Tennessee.

When I got to school the next morning, she was sitting on the stairs. She had that blue stare in her eyes. She was looking right through the car. It got really hot in there. I got really nervous. I did not want to get out of the car that day.

She said, “You said you wanted to be one of the best players. To be one of the best, you’ve got to play against the best. There’s no team better than us.”

On a piece of paper, she wrote down Tennessee and another school I was thinking about going to. She folded it in half. She wrote Championships and six under Tennessee and one under the other. She wrote Olympians—(eight) under Tennessee and zero under the other. She wrote Players in the WNBA, (six) to two. She just continued down the page.

She wasn’t really looking at me—she was burning a hole through my head. This had to be one of the most nervous moments of my life—my hands were sweating and clammy. As bad as I wanted to go to the other school, I knew everything she said was right. Not long after that, I decided to go to Tennessee. It ended up being a great situation for me. But that was definitely one of the scariest moments of my life.